year, if ever. Crowded! every
magistrate in the place present. And the chief magistrate to be in the
dock presently! That's dramatic effect, if you like!"

Brent was watching the dock: prisoners came into it by a staircase at
the back. Krevin came first: cool, collected, calmly defiant--outwardly,
he was less concerned than any spectator. But Simon shambled heavily
forward, his big, flabby face coloured with angry resentment and shame.
He beckoned to his solicitor and began to talk eagerly to him over the
separating partition; he, it was evident, was all nerves and eagerness.
But Krevin, after a careful look round the court, during which he
exchanged nods with several of his acquaintance, stood staring
reflectively at Meeking, as if speculating on what the famous barrister
was going to say in opening the case.

Meeking said little. The prisoners, he observed, addressing the bench in
quiet, conversational tones, were charged, Krevin Crood with the actual
murder of the late Mayor, John Wallingford; Simon, with being accessory
to the fact, and, if they had not absconded during the previous
twenty-four hours, two other well-known residents of the borough,
Stephen Mallett and James Coppinger, would have stood in the dock with
Simon Crood, similarly charged. He should show their worships by the
evidence which he would produce that patient and exhaustive
investigation by the local police had brought to light as wicked a
conspiracy as could well be imagined. There could be no doubt in the
mind of any reasonable person after hearing that evidence, that Simon
Crood, Mallett and Coppinger entered into a plot to rid themselves of a
man who, had his investigations continued, would infallibly have exposed
their nefarious practices to the community, nor that they employed
Krevin Crood to carry out their designs. He would show that the murder
of Wallingford was deliberately plotted at Mallett's house, between the
four men, on a certain particular date, and that Krevin Crood committed
the actual murder on the following evening. Thanks to the particularly
able and careful fashion in which Superintendent Hawthwaite had
marshalled the utterly damning body of evidence against these men, their
Worships would have no difficulty in deciding that there was a _prima
facie_ case against them and that they must be committed to take their
trial at the next Assizes.

Hawthwaite, called first, gave evidence as to the arrest of the two
prisoners.